EC rejects calls for publication of ‘banned’ 2020 voters’ names

The Electoral Commission has rejected calls for the publication of names of persons who will not be allowed to vote in the upcoming polls.

Such calls were made by a number of groups and institutions including the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE).

The Commission believes that the about 30,000 affected persons are by themselves aware of their ineligibility to participate in the elections hence there will not be a need to make public their names.

The Director of Elections at the Electoral Commission (EC) Dr Serebour Quarcoo in an interview with Citi News’ Sixtus Dong Ullo said “if you registered more than once, you know you have more than one ID card, you yourself you know you have registered more than once and I shouldn’t tell you. I don’t need to publish your name before you know.”

Last week, the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education, Josephine Nkrumah urged the Electoral Commission (EC) to publish the names of all persons who have been suspended from participating in the December polls due to various irregularities with their registration.

She said making the list public will help avert confusion at polling stations in cases where affected persons arrive at polling centres before realizing they have been excluded from the voting.

But Dr. Quarcoo disagrees.

He said the EC’s systems were able to identify persons who had registered multiple times at different polling stations and has flagged them.

He indicated that although the names of such persons are still in the register, they will not be able to vote and reasons for their exclusion from the eligible voters will be stated in the register.

“People thought that once they were not caught at the registration centre, they have succeeded in getting away with it… They are in the register, but they are inactive and on the day of the elections, when the list goes to the polling stations, your name will appear but if you registered three times, the attire you wore at all the three centres will come,” he indicated.

Banned voters

The Electoral Commission in October indicated that it has deleted some 30,000 names from the voters’ register.

The affected persons are said to have engaged in multiple registrations or were challenged and not cleared by the various district review committees.

16,000 of the deleted names were found to have registered multiple times hence will not be allowed to vote in the upcoming elections while the other 14,000 were put on the exception list by the EC.